We warmed up to Shaun Davey's jig, Water Under the Keel from his suite The Brendan Voyage and after opening up the voices with a few scales, made our way through several songs learned some time ago. It was heartening to find that, almost in spite of ourselves, we had improved considerably. As I keep saying, the subconscious is a wonderful thing, doing all that consolidating for us while we're quite unaware.
Our new song today was Fareweel to Tarwathie, a song of the Dundee whalers, but unlike other sea songs, not one necessarily for helping the work along, but with its 3/4 time, gentle swaying rhythm and contemplative words, rather one for quite times on board, perhaps during dark evenings before sleep.
The scales on the instruments are progressing at a speedier pace now and music reading is coming along too.
